Bombay HC dismisses plea challenging exclusion of movies from MIFF

The Bombay High Court on Monday dismissed as withdrawn the petition of Anand Patwardhan and Pankajrishi Kumar, challenging the decision to exclude their movies from the screening at the Mumbai International Film Festival (MIFF).

After going through the submission, the HC was satisfied with the claim that MIFF has selected all the films without any bias and the set parameters were not violated in the selection process.

Dismissed as withdrawn means the court would have dismissed the petition had the petitioner not agree to withdraw it.

The petitioners had approached the Bombay High Court against MIFF's decision to reject their documentaries for screening at the film festival alleging that all the movies, which were "even slightly critical of the Central government, were rejected by MIFF's selection committee."

The High Court had, on Friday, directed the MIFF to submit the records of the selection process followed by the selection committee, which was submitted by Additional Solicitor General Anil Singh.

The filmmakers had alleged that proper procedure of selecting the movies was not followed and that the reason their movies are not selected is the topics on which the movies were made.

Patwardhan's 'Vivek/Reason' and Kumar's 'Janani's Juliet' and 'Two Flags' were rejected by the selection committee of the film festival from being screened at the ceremony, which begins on January 28.

The movie 'Vivek/Reason' covers the historic events of over a period of 100 years from Mahatma Gandhi's assassination to the murders of Narendra Dabholkar, Govind Pansare, and Gauri Lankesh.

Pankajrishi Kumar's movies, on the other hand, are based on issues of caste and gender-based discrimination and honour killing.